I just finished posting the new Federal minimum wage posters that I am required to post but which none of the employees ever reads anyway. What makes this so crazy is that Nazifornia's minimum wage now is already higher than the final increase step of the Federal Minumum wage making the poster a completely useless piece of paper. Yet if I don't post it I am in violation of the Federal statute requiring me to post it yet the information is 100% irrelevant. Arrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is one glaring reason why we need a federal government many times smaller than we have now. Local and state governments are much closer to the concerns of their constituents, and thus typically make better decisions. Of course, I am against the minimum wage in any case. The liberals always cry and moan, saying, "How can you expect anyone to live on the tiny amount of the previous minimum wage?" To which I always answer that I don't expect people to live on it. The low end of the pay scale is for entry level workers. It's for the teenager working his first job at McDonalds to have some money to take girls out on dates. It's not a living wage, nor should they try to make it so that the minimum that you can pay someone is enough to live off of. For one thing, it actually means that fewer jobs are available, as Jason has pointed out in his situation. He has a mechanic that isn't worth the new minimum wage for mechanics with their own tools. So, for that mechanic, any advantage to a higher minimum wage is wiped out by the fact that he is now going to be unemployed for a while.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
We used to have three janitors and now we have one. Why, increases in the minimum wage. My janitor is actually paid more than the minimum wage but the increases got so rediculous we cut back. So what is better? Having two more people employed full time with benefits paid by me or having one person making a slightly higher wage. Hmmmmm. Minumum wage in California for mechanics who own their own tools if $15 per hour and going up to $16 in January. If they aren't worth that much money, they got laid off. So did the minimum wage help them or just put them on the unemployment line.
Unemployment can really work a number on your finances. If a mechanic who earns $15 an hour is unemployed for a month, he'll miss $2400 in wages. The increase of the minimum wage for him from $15 to $16 an hour would have only earned him $2080 additional a year. So even if he finds another job making minimum wage, he has a net loss in income. But the reality is that there will be fewer mechanic jobs, therefore tougher competition for the jobs that remain. So he will have to spend even more money to gain new skills, or even to totally change professions if he can't get another job as a mechanic. What good has the minimum wage increase really done for that person?
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
It doesn't do anything for him. The living wage bunk is just a smoke screen. These raises in the minimum wage are pushed by unions who either have contracts tied to the minimum wage or will use the increase as leverage to get more money. It goes hand in hand with the prevailing wage BS that requires the government to deal only with contractors who pay the prevailing wage even if they are not union and then a school that should cost 1 million to get build costs 10 million. Then there are complaints that we don't spend enough on education.
We had a unionized tire manufacturing plant nearby. The starting rate for a guy that moved stuff with a forklift was $20 per hour. The skilled labor made significantly more. The union wanted more money so they closed the plant down and moved it overseas. These guys were so bitter that they were very vocal in their complaints about how they were shafted. I went to a job fair and these guys stood around and did nothing but complain about their former employer moving. These guys were having difficulty finding jobs in the area because no one else paid like they were used to and they refused to work for less. Those that finally gave in though complained so much that no one wanted to touch them. Oh, where were the union bosses when these guys were out of work for a year or more? They had moved on. Hard to collect union dues from guys that aren't working. Most of those guys are long gone. Had to move or change their attitude. Puting the tire manufacturer's name on a job application as a former employer was the kiss of death for the application. No one would touch these guys after all the complaining.
Check it out....from today's WSJ. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010374
REVIEW & OUTLOOK Cheese Headcases July 24, 2007; Page A14
When Louis Brandeis praised the 50 states as "laboratories of democracy," he didn't claim that every policy experiment would work. So we hope the eyes of America will turn to Wisconsin, and the effort by Madison Democrats to make that "progressive" state a petri dish for government-run health care.
This exercise is especially instructive, because it reveals where the "single-payer," universal coverage folks end up. Democrats who run the Wisconsin Senate have dropped the Washington pretense of incremental health-care reform and moved directly to passing a plan to insure every resident under the age of 65 in the state. And, wow, is "free" health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes. It represents an average of $510 a month in higher taxes for every Wisconsin worker.
Employees and businesses would pay for the plan by sharing the cost of a new 14.5% employment tax on wages. Wisconsin businesses would have to compete with out-of-state businesses and foreign rivals while shouldering a 29.8% combined federal-state payroll tax, nearly double the 15.3% payroll tax paid by non-Wisconsin firms for Social Security and Medicare combined.
This employment tax is on top of the $1 billion grab bag of other levies that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle proposed and the tax-happy Senate has also approved, including a $1.25 a pack increase in the cigarette tax, a 10% hike in the corporate tax, and new fees on cars, trucks, hospitals, real estate transactions, oil companies and dry cleaners. In all, the tax burden in the Badger state could rise to 20% of family income, which is slightly more than the average federal tax burden. "At least federal taxes pay for an Army and Navy," quips R.J. Pirlot of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce business lobby.
As if that's not enough, the health plan includes a tax escalator clause allowing an additional 1.5 percentage point payroll tax to finance higher outlays in the future. This could bring the payroll tax to 16%. One reason to expect costs to soar is that the state may become a mecca for the unemployed, uninsured and sick from all over North America. The legislation doesn't require that you have a job in Wisconsin to qualify, merely that you live in the state for at least 12 months. Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health-care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes.
Proponents use the familiar argument for national health care that this will save money (about $1.8 billion a year) through efficiency gains by eliminating the administrative costs of private insurance. And unions and some big businesses with rich union health plans are only too happy to dump these liabilities onto the government.
But those costs won't vanish; they'll merely shift to all taxpayers and businesses. Small employers that can't afford to provide insurance would see their employment costs rise by thousands of dollars per worker, while those that now provide a basic health insurance plan would have to pay $400 to $500 a year more per employee.
The plan is also openly hostile to market incentives that contain costs. Private companies are making modest progress in sweating out health-care inflation by making patients more cost-conscious through increased copayments, health savings accounts, and incentives for wellness. The Wisconsin program moves in the opposite direction: It reduces out-of-pocket copayments, bars money-saving HSA plans, and increases the number of mandated medical services covered under the plan.
So where will savings come from? Where they always do in any government plan: Rationing via price controls and, as costs rise, waiting periods and coverage restrictions. This is Michael Moore's medical dream state.
The last line of defense against this plan are the Republicans who run the Wisconsin House. So far they've been unified and they recently voted the Senate plan down. Democrats are now planning to take their ideas to the voters in legislative races next year, and that's a debate Wisconsinites should look forward to. At least Wisconsin Democrats are admitting how much it will cost Americans to pay for government-run health care. Would that Washington Democrats were as forthright.
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Lo, there I see my mother, my sisters, my brothers Lo, there I see the line of my people back to the beginning Lo, they call to me, they bid me take my place among them In the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live...forever
What about when your dad used to give you piggy back rides?
Those aren't free either. To give you a piggy back ride, there was a price that had to be paid. For instance, he could not play any other game with you. He couldn't be working during that time to earn extra money to buy you stuff with. But at the time that he gives you the piggy back ride, that ride is more important to you than the other stuff that he could be doing with his time, so you're willing to bear the cost.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Especially when he's holding out the cookie sheet in front of him, slowly marching, ready to demolish the Lincoln Logs cabin you just made! You must run and do a flying mount and yell, GO DAD!!! Yeah!
(Technically I guess that was a horsey ride...)
-- Edited by Cocobeem at 17:02, 2007-07-26
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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
We might start by asking what right does anybody have to dictate to an employer whom he can hire, what wages he can pay, or how many hours he can work his employees?
How then do we justify sending the police and the bureaucrats out to regiment employers on our behalf?
Putting yourself in the employers places, would you like to be dictated to in these matters, or would you want the freedom to make your own decisions?
What does our conscience tell us about compelling people to save for their old age under the social security laws, whether they want to or not? What justification do we find for forcing them to buy medical insurance (as Mitt Romney did while Governor of Massachusetts)? Such government regulation-both state and federal-have now reached nearly every aspect of our private lives.
The people of the United States who are complying with these multitudinous rules and regulations are doing so under the threat of being punished with a forcible deprivation of their liberties and properties if they don't comply. And who is threatening us? We are doing it to each other. One wonders if we are not living in those days foreseen by the prophet Isaiah when he said:
"And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor; the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable." (Isaiah 3:5; 2 Nephi 13:5)
If we try to solve the problems of poverty, ignorance, and suffering by forcing others to be charitable and by denying people the freedom to make their own mistakes, we have adopted Satan's plan and have subjected ourselves to him to the same extent.
What about when your dad used to give you piggy back rides?
Those aren't free either. To give you a piggy back ride, there was a price that had to be paid. For instance, he could not play any other game with you. He couldn't be working during that time to earn extra money to buy you stuff with. But at the time that he gives you the piggy back ride, that ride is more important to you than the other stuff that he could be doing with his time, so you're willing to bear the cost.
Plus he could hurt his back or strain it over time, possibly requiring future surgery/rehabilitation and lost wages. And if he falls while carrying you, you could be injured as well- thus costing even more!
So Jason, what is Nazifornia's minimum wage anyway?
$7.50 per hour now, going up to $8.00 in January. There are some exceptions though like the mechanics with tools have to be paid a minumum of twice that amount whether they are good or not. In Sanfrancisco the minimum wage is higher than that.
I think the thing I most resent about government intrusion in my business is being their wage and tax collector. I don't get paid to collect taxes on their behalf. I have to collect taxes from my employees for the State and Federal governments, send them to them, and then quarterly do the paperwork showing that I did send them the right amount. I have to do sales taxes the same way. I collect the sales tax and send it to the state government. Nearly every county and town around here has it's own tax rate so I have to keep track of which sale happened to each customer and quarterly report all this via a nice 6 page tax form every quarter for which I am also not paid by the government. If one of my employees owes taxes I get a wage garnishment order requiring me to act as law enforcement and take the money out of his paycheck and send it in. If my employee is a dead beat parent, the government sends me a child support withholding order forcing me to pull money out and sign the employee up for health insurance, all without compensation. When an employee leaves I have to generate a stack of paper informing them of their HIPPA and COBRA rights to purchase health insurance from me. Then if they elect that even though they don't work for me I get to collect the money from them and do all the paperwork necessary to make that happen. If they apply for unemployment and they were fired for good cause I have to prove that I was right, not the other way around.
I could honestly work another job if I didn't have to do all this every month.
